Continuous Improvement Engineer

Your Job

Guardian Industries is looking for a Continuous Improvement Engineer to join our team in Carleton, MI!

The Continuous Improvement Engineer will partner with operations, quality, and support functions to identify and eliminate waste, improve process performance, and drive sustainable, profitable improvements. This role uses data driven, economic thinking to prioritize opportunities, applies risk-based process control to ensure quality consistency, and develops a culture and toolbox for rigorous root cause analysis and countermeasure implementation. The successful candidate builds systemic knowledge of our process controls and acts as a technical and cultural change agent.

Our Team

You will be part of a diverse contribution motivated team, working within a culture that encourages entrepreneurship and challenge with respect and humility to deliver superior results for our internal and external customers.

What You Will Do

• Implement and maintain a risk-based approach to process control (FMEA, control plans, critical-to-quality identification)
• Design and operationalize statistical process control (SPC) and capability studies to monitor process stability and capability
• Drive understanding of quality control effectiveness by linking control data to business outcomes (scrap, rework, customer complaints, warranty)
• Recommend and implement control strategies (automation, poka-yoke, process 3) Root Cause Analysis & Systemic Process Knowledge
• Build systemic knowledge of process control systems to enable rapid problem solving
• Equip teams with RCA tools (5 Whys, fishbone/Ishikawa, fault tree) and guide structured investigations to identify true root causes
• Ensure robust countermeasure design, verification, and follow-up (PDCA/DMAIC), and prevent recurrence with documented controls
• Foster a culture of accountability and learning, ensure lessons learned are captured and spread across sites
• Lead cross-functional Kaizen events and continuous improvement workshops
• Train and mentor staff in Lean, Six Sigma, and problem-solving methods
• Collaborate with IT and analytics teams to scale data collection, automation, and reporting
• Support change management and stakeholder communication for rollouts

Who You Are (Basic Qualifications)

• Continuous improvement, process engineering, or quality engineering experience in manufacturing/operations or relevant environment
• Demonstrated experience with Lean, Six Sigma (Yellow/Green Belt or equivalent), RCA, and/or SPC
• Strong analytical skills using Excel, Minitab, Python/R, or similar application in addition to comfort with data-driven decision-making/influencing without authority
• Experience leading projects and communicating with stakeholders and cross functional teams

What Will Put You Ahead

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, or related field
• Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt certification
• Experience with ERP/MES systems, database querying (SQL), and dashboarding tools (Power BI, Tableau)
• Familiarity with regulatory/auditable environments and risk management (FMEA, ISO, AS9100, ISO 9001)

At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value and get rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak to your recruiter about the flexibility and detail of our compensation philosophy.

Hiring Philosophy

All Koch companies value diversity of thought, perspectives, aptitudes, experiences, and backgrounds. We are Military Ready and Second Chance employers. Learn more about our hiring philosophy here.

Who We Are

As a Koch company, Guardian Glass is one of the world's largest manufacturers of float, value-added and fabricated glass products and solutions. We produce high-performance glass for architectural, residential, interior, transportation and technical glass applications. You'll find our glass in homes, offices and cars and in some of the world's most iconic projects

At Koch, employees are empowered to do what they do best to make life better. Learn how our business philosophy helps employees unleash their potential while creating value for themselves and the company.

Our Benefits

Our goal is for each employee, and their families, to live fulfilling and healthy lives. We provide essential resources and support to build and maintain physical, financial, and emotional strength - focusing on overall wellbeing so you can focus on what matters most. Our benefits plan includes - medical, dental, vision, flexible spending and health savings accounts, life insurance, ADD, disability, retirement, paid vacation/time off, educational assistance, and may also include infertility assistance, paid parental leave and adoption assistance. Specific eligibility criteria is set by the applicable Summary Plan Description, policy or guideline and benefits may vary by geographic region. If you have questions on what benefits apply to you, please speak to your recruiter.

Additionally, everyone has individual work and personal needs. We seek to enable the best work environment that helps you and the business work together to produce superior results.

Equal Opportunities

Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability and protected veteran status. Except where prohibited by state law, some offers of employment are conditioned upon successfully passing a drug test. This employer uses E-Verify. Please click here for additional information. (For Illinois E-Verify information click here, aqui, or tu).